These days, 50 Cent does his fighting on Instagram

But let's not forget the 42-year old was a real man of the streets before he became a rapper -- and then he became a Mean Girl-like social media personality.

DJ Whoo Kid reminded everyone of that during an interview with HotNewHipHop.  The Queens native and frequent 50-collaborator explained how a pre-fame Fif would regularly shake down drug dealers with his fists.

“50 cent, who was known as Boo Boo, was on the block beating up drug lords that owed him money. Randomly, I would see him come up in a Baby Ninja. He always had a motorcycle. Everybody knew it was him. It was like Debo. It was like watching fucking "Friday" and shit. He’ll jump off the bike, beat everybody in the corner. I don’t know if they paid him or not. He would literally get on his ninja and take off ... I would never have thought that 12 maybe 13 years later I would be doing arenas with this guy that was beating drug dealers.

Whoo Kid talks about 50 as Debo at the four-minute mark.